Like the many rivers flow to the ocean, many thoughts come to my mind. I some times try to express those to my friends who are far away from me.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Sri Ram

During last few months, I had debate on many places regarding the true character of Sri Ram. Many so called secular cupids say he is the most unacceptable character of all Hindu Legends. But when I presented truth about him, people don't have any point to say.

Yesterday, I met with a person. He was unknown to me. We were standing at a bus-stop, waiting for the bus. He asked me the time, and we started conversation. I noticed, he used to say, "by God's grace" very often. Then he asked me my caste. I said him, I don't know. Then he asked me my religion. I said I am a Hindu. He smiled and said," first time I saw a person who does not know his caste". I asked him why he is interested to know my caste ? His answer was very strange, and again I had to give lecture on the truth of caste system in Vedas, and said him I don't know which caste he is interested to know, the varna as I derived from the Vedas, or the caste as certified by the Govt. of India.

From this point, we changed our topic to Sri Ram, and he said the same thing, which I am facing for last three years. I asked him, "are you converted ?", and the answer was yes, then I had no doubt why he started talking me and why he asked me about my caste.

Now a days, the conversion drive has changed their places and targets. They stand on the bus stops, railway stations, start friendly conversation, then starts alleging the Hindu Legends to be the worst, and start praising Jesus and the Bible. Some one who is unaware of the facts of Sri Ram, may not accept him that time, but later he will start thinking a lot, and with three or four such attempts he will surely change.

But, this man did a mistake by saying me that, Ram never respected women, he treated with sudras in very worse manner, and he was against non-violence. He had nothing to say, when I show him the Bible words, that say women are slaves of men, slaves can be a sex slave too, the slave has almost no right, girls are to be sold, and Jesus himself said, I have not come for peace, I am a sword. Our discussion ended with the words that, no religion is perfect.

But so far Prabhu Ram Chandra is concerned, I believe he is the best character found in any book describing God. People give false allegations on him. So I thought of listing the allegation and truth behind them.

Allegations

1. He never respected women : Critics of Sri Ram say that he never respected women, and they show example of Sita, and Ahalya. Sita had to give burn herself in the fire to prove that she is pure like fire and his love for Ram is pure as well, still when the citizen raised question on Sita, Ram left her in the forest when she was pregnant.

But the important thing to notice here that, this action was not justified in the Ramayan itself, and Ram too never justified these acts. He said these acts are the customs of the time, which are bad, he accepted he made mistake by doing such things, he accepted those who is not kind on women does not have moral right to be a king, and he left his position and the kingdom for ever.

Such a morality, is being criticized. But people have nothing to say when the God of Bible and Koran permit killing of women by stoning for the same mistake. Untill early 19th century these killings were considered to be good by many Christian dominate nations, and the same is the punishment for losing virginity in all islam countries.

Ram is the only character of Religious Books who opposed this stand.

2. Ram never respected the sudras:Critics show the lines from Ram Charit Manas, writen by Tulasi Das that says dhol, pashu, sudra or nari.... In these lines, it is said that an animal, women and sudra are to be beaten some times.

Before I say the truth, one more thing is to be said, the story of Ram, is not only written in Ram Charit Manas, it is written in most of the languages of the earth. There are stories in Russia, China, Indonesia, Iran that are very similar to that of Ram. The thing is the islamamisation and Christianity drive in these lands did not preserve them. Few years ago, the excavation of Spain brought out some stone arts, and the arts are very similar to that of Sri Ram. So just by going through a book, one can not judge character of Ram, for that one need to go through all the books.

Truely speaking, these lines appear only in Ram Charit manas, and not in any other book for Ram. True character of Ram regarding Sudras can be understood by two facts found in all the books for Ram.

One is the story associated with a boat driver. In this story, he requested (not ordered) a boat driver to help them to cross the river, the boat driver did not respect him, and asked for gold, Ram again requested him to help him cross the river, and promised to give him gold. After they crossed the river, the boat man saw his boat has been converted to Gold. Then he touched the feet of Ram and begged pardon for his misbehave.

Two things are to be notice here, the boat man was not respectful, but there was not any punishment for him, and he could touch Ram, it means he was not untouchable.

The second story is, a poor villege lady feeds Ram some jungle fruits, after tasting them first. It means she was not untouchable, and there was no social problem in eating in their houses too. This is the modern drive by Rahul Gandhi I guess.

So this allegation on Sri Ram is also false.

Apart from these two allegation, no other allegation is so strong that will say Ram is unacceptable character. In true sense, he is the one of the best characters in Hinduism.